


Serendipity

by TheMelancholyVegetable



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Fluff, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:07:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26741860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMelancholyVegetable/pseuds/TheMelancholyVegetable
Summary: Patrick thinks about the path that brought him to David.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Comments: 4
Kudos: 84
Collections: Rose Apothecary Flufftober 2020





	Serendipity

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt:**
> 
> Serendipity

Patrick sips his tea as he watches his boyfriend across the room. David’s bare feet, draped over the arm of his chair, tap in the air to whatever pop diva is singing through his earbuds as he sketches in his worn leather journal. Seated on the sofa, Patrick is out of David’s line of sight, but even if he wasn’t, David is too wrapped up in his music and his art to notice Patrick looking.

Patrick often spends their mornings off like this. He likes seeing David wrapped up in something he loves. All his walls down. Face soft and still. He gets lost sometimes, watching David. Sometimes he’ll sit on the couch all morning, just enjoying the vision of his boyfriend relaxing and allowing his thoughts to meander.

This morning, he is thinking about a class visit to the library back in college. They sat in a computer lab in the library as a librarian taught them about search strategies and peer reviewed journals and things. It was all pretty basic, nothing Patrick hadn’t already known. But near the end of the lesson, she said something that, years later, set his life on a new course.

_Sometimes the perfect source is the one you just stumble upon. Libraries are organized to increase the likelihood of serendipity. Take advantage of that._

At the time, Patrick had understood it to be just another tool in his student arsenal. Good students know how to search for information effectively, but great students know when to browse, and follow reference trails, and allow for serendipity. And Patrick was a great student. So, he added serendipitous browsing to his research tool belt. In fact, that was how he’d chosen his thesis topic for his MBA.

The thing is, though, it’s one thing to take advantage of library organization to help you stumble upon the perfect source. It’s another thing entirely to make room for serendipity in your everyday life. The latter is something _Before Patrick_ had never been good at. _Before Patrick_ lived his life according to a timetable, structured and controlled and entirely predictable. _Before Patrick_ was miserable.

To fill his time, and as a means of escape, _Before Patrick_ read a lot. Nonfiction, mysteries, science fiction, thrillers, anything really, as long as it took him away from his reality. As a result, he spent a lot of time at his local library. One Saturday afternoon, he’d been browsing the shelves when he rounded a corner to find two men holding hands. They were clearly just pulling back from a kiss, and his appearance startled them as much as their being there startled him. He excused himself, they nodded politely and walked on, and that was that.

Except it wasn’t. Not really. Because that innocuous encounter stayed with Patrick. He thought about it at baseball practice. He thought about it on his morning commute and all day at work. He thought about it as he ate dinner with Rachel, as he helped his dad fix the car, and in bed at night as he pretended to read the novel he’d picked up that day.

It wasn’t so much seeing two men holding hands and kissing. He’d seen gay couples before, of course he had. But something about the combination of the affectionate couple, the library, and the ever-present feeling that his life was a train heading inexorably into nowhere, well…it had gotten to him. His first thought, after the initial startle, was of that librarian so many years ago.

Of course, it wasn’t until much later that he remembered more or less exactly what she had said. In that moment, he just remembered, vaguely, something about how taking advantage of the library’s organization can lead to serendipity. And there he was in a library, browsing the mysteries on autopilot, and suddenly he felt like maybe he had an answer to a question he hadn’t even known he was asking. Was this serendipity? Did this count? Patrick felt sure it wasn’t what that librarian had had in mind when she talked to his class, but maybe that didn’t matter. Maybe letting himself think about it in this way _was_ _part of_ opening himself up to the possibilities.

Three weeks later, with his car packed and his life in ruins, Patrick had headed out of town. He wasn’t sure where he was going, but he had a full tank of gas and a burning need to escape. To start something new. When he got to the highway, the eastbound on-ramp was closed for construction, so he headed west. _Serendipity_. Hours later, his gas light came on just as he came upon the strangest town sign he had ever seen. He stopped for gas and went inside to buy a bottle of water and something to snack on. Inside, there was a bulletin board full of local notices – lost pets, real estate listings, business cards – and a man, Ray, was posting a flyer advertising a job. _Serendipity_. A month later, a couple rescheduled their engagement photoshoot with Ray at the last minute, so Patrick agreed to cover his consulting appointment with a David Rose, who Ray had called a “real character.” _Serendipity_.

Patrick sets his empty mug on the wobbly coffee table, stands up, and takes the three steps over to David. He tries to make enough noise that he won’t startle David into making a mistake in his sketch. When David looks up at him his face is questioning, like he is expecting Patrick to announce that he’s going on a hike or going to jump in the shower, or something equally mundane. Patrick smiles down at him and reaches a hand out to run along his forehead and down his cheek. He cups David’s face in both hands and leans down for a kiss, trying to press all of his feelings into David’s lips.

“What was that for?” David asks when Patrick pulls back.

“Nothing, really,” Patrick deflects, “just thinking about how lucky I am.”


End file.
